KDE – A Consideration

*** KDE – A Consideration *** I have never been a KDE user, not from any type of bias, just GNOME was my first pick and I’ve never had and need to use another. Recently I’ve encountered a rousing interest in the desktop I’ve only tried a couple times. I think the normal reason users choose Gnome initially is because of Firefox. And though now I have migrated to Epiphany, it’s the same difference. I wasn’t incredibly impressed the first time I used Konquerer years ago. Not to say it was bad, but it was pretty young at the time.

Not until Lee mentioned KDE as a possible alternative had I ever thought of such. My first thought was, “Doesn’t KDE use a lot more system memory that Gnome?”. Apparently I was off in that thought. My first search turned up and interesting result – Nice – learn something new every day.

Now about Konquerer I’m not as sure. Epiphany isn’t IE, nor Firefox for that reason, but it runs pretty dam well on this computer (better than IE did in Mac OS 9), and probably because of it’s long release cycle, Konquerer doesn’t get the attention it should.

When I had my MacBook, I used OS X several times and Safari wasn’t that bad of a browser. I would rate it above Opera (sorry Opera fans) and since the Mac OS X Firefox port is so poor, I would use it anytime I used X. Apple has done some good things with WebKit and I’m interested in seeing if this translates well into Konqueror.

My system memory usage on GNOME is very reasonable. I use 150MB with Epiphany, Zim and Gimp, and Terminal running, so using KDE looks like not to be a problem.

I did use Gnome for a short time. When I was able to switch to KDE life got much better. I think if I only had Gnome to use, and I used it for a long time, it would be ingrained in my brain and anything I tried afterward just wouldn’t measure up. Yes, KDE does use more memory but it’s not a hog like XP. And when applications crash, like Firefox, you get all your memory back.

I almost never use Konqueror as a web browser, just when Firefox fails me oddly enough. And Konqueror hasn’t failed me yet. I think Konqueror is a very under rated application. Just one little thing I discovered the other day. Open a Firefox window and then a folder window. Try dragging a download button (to a jpg file or wallpaper) over to your folder (Note: the ‘download’ button has to be a link to the file its self and not a java script or something else). It doesn’t work. Now try the same thing with Konqueror. Pretty cool. Other browsers may be able to do this but I haven’t had enough experience with them. I did have Epiphany running for a couple of weeks. It did a good job of rendering web pages. I had to pass on it because I cannot live with out adblock and flash block. I can’t look at a web page if anything is moving on it.

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